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Tuesday, January
11, 2011 The Gun Idolatry
in Current American Culture
“We
are devoted to creating an America free from gun violence, where all
Americans are safe at home, at school, at work, and in our communities. As
the Brady Campaign, we work to enact and enforce sensible gun laws,
regulations, and public policies through grassroots activism, electing public
officials who support gun laws, and increasing public awareness of gun
violence.” Brady Center to
Prevent Gun Violence, Mission statement Is the real American motto of the current
American generation “In Guns We Trust”? This could surely be the impression one
gets from the unfolding of recent events. There exists
currently in the United States an unhealthy obsession with guns, —a
form of idolatry of the gun as a useful tool to settle differences between
individuals. Increasingly, it seems, when someone feels slighted in any way,
the reaction is often to rely on the gun to settle things. Instances of
appalling gun-related incidents seem to multiply and to be occurring on a
daily basis in the current American cultural climate. A disgruntled employee
is let go; the upset person goes home, takes a gun and comes back to the work
site to set the score straight, killing many people in a shooting rampage. A
deranged political
extremist campaigns against a
candidate who is nevertheless elected; the disappointed individual takes his
easily available gun and shots at the politician and kills half a dozen other
people. A devout religious
fanatic feels that somehow his religion and its adepts are not
well considered; he takes his gun and he assassinates at random everybody
around. Frustrated
students fail at school or are ostracized somewhat by
classmates; they go home, take their parents' gun and kill teachers and
scores of fellow students. Even some
disturbed ten-year olds
now resort to the gun and turn it against their mother or father when they
have been scolded, the gun being conveniently stashed in their room. It's a
far cry from the commandment “Honor Thy Mother and Father”! There would
appear to be a firearms-related homicide crisis in the United States, but the
idea that guns are required in the daily life of individuals is so well
entrenched and propagated that a state of collective denial persists. Two
hundred years ago, the vast majority of people lived on farms.
Understandably, guns were then a necessity for hunting and for protection in
a still wild and relatively lawless environment. Nowadays, the vast majority
of people live in large urban areas where no hunting is allowed. What is then
the need for large and small firearms, if not to shoot other people? There is, of
course, the persistent myth that Americans have the “right” to
amass large quantity of firearms and to use them. Here again this seems to be
a relic of bygone times when the young American republic was threatened by
its former British masters and could lose its recently acquired independence
through a British invasion. At that time, there was a perceived need to
constitute rapidly a militia to defend the homeland, and armed farmers could
provide such an instant army. That is the logical interpretation that can be
given to the second amendment of the
U.S Constitution of 1789 that says: “A well regulated
militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the
people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” The most logical
implication here is that some convenient precautions can be taken to defend
the state with “well regulated” armed militias, at a time when
the U.S. federal government was perceived to be weak and incapable of
mounting a federal military response to an outside invasion or to a domestic
armed uprising, and that it should not prevent the states from raising
militias to maintain order. Such was the constitutional climate at the time.
—This provision in the U.S. Constitution was hardly designed to be an
open license for each and every individual to arm oneself, to use such arms
at will, and to constitute a “non-regulated” one-man militia if
he chooses to do so. Such a wide and
extravagant interpretation in a modern urban environment would seem to be a
sure recipe for social and political anarchy.
Moreover, nowadays, the U.S. federal government is in full control of a
powerful U.S. military organization and has no need whatsoever of private
militias to defend the territory. Also, today, the state
national guards have de facto taken the place that quickly enrolled private
militias could have occupied in the past. There is no need today for readily
available private armed militias to defend the territory. Nevertheless,
some American judges
have ruled, and some American
politicians have agreed, that the centuries-old right to form
“well regulated” militias and to carry arms to defend the
homeland really means that anybody, in the current modern environment, has an
absolute individual right to own dangerous firearms of the nature and
quantity he chooses, including sophisticated assault weapons, and to use
them, and that no elected government can interfere. The most recent
case on this issue has been the ruling on Parker v District of
Columbia, in which the
District of Columbia Circuit court of appeals ruled on March 9, 2007 that a
D.C. ban on handgun ownership without a license violated individual rights
under the U. S. Second Amendment. —And that's where things stand
today... and the killing continues. How many tragedies will be needed
before mentalities change? Rodrigue
Tremblay
is professor emeritus of economics at the University
of Montreal and can be reached at rodrigue.tremblay@yahoo.com. He is the author of the book "The
Code for Global Ethics"
at: www.TheCodeForGlobalEthics.com/ The book
“The Code for Global Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles”, by Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay, prefaced by Dr.
Paul Kurtz, has just been released by Prometheus Books. Please visit the book site at: www.TheCodeForGlobalEthics.com/ See it on
Amazon
USA See it on
Amazon
Canada See it on
Amazon
UK or, in Australia Please ask your favorite bookstore and
your local library to order the book: The Code for Global
Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles, by Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay, prefaced by Dr.
Paul Kurtz, Prometheus Books, 2010, 300 p. ISBN: 978-1616141721. *****The French version of the book is also now
available. See: www.lecodepouruneethiqueglobale.com/ or on Amazon
Canada _____________________________________ Posted, Tuesday January 11, 2011 at 5:30 am Email to a friend: http://www.TheNewAmericanEmpire.com/tremblay=1133 or click on Blog at: www.TheCodeForGlobalEthics.com Send contact, comments or commercial reproduction
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